Housing the Poor

For John, BLUF:  Public Housing is a big deal in the United States and represent the efforts of progressive thinkers to provide better housing for the poor.  However there is a question of if the cure is worse than the disease.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Poor Side of Town: And Why We Need It
Author:  Howard A. Husock
Kindle Version:  Pages
Publisher:  Encounter Books
Language:  English
ASIN:  B08SKK7FGP
Publication Date:  21 September 2021

The theme of this book is that Public Housing, as understood in the united States from the 19th Century is not just a failure, but destructive of the individuals caught up in its web.  The author compares Public Housing with the City Slums it was supposed to clean up and concludes that more was lost than gained.

To be clear, those advocating Public Housing down over the decades had the best of intentions.  What they lacked was an understandihg of, and faith in, the working of small scale democracy and capitalism.  An Economist who undertands this is Peru's Hernando De Soto, who wrote about Peru (but could apply what he says to the Great Migration in the united States):

...“surprise revolution”—the movement of millions from the countryside to cities—has been choked in its potential for uplift, not because slum dwellers lack talent or energy but because the legal systems in their new locales don’t allow them to be secure in ownership and accumulate wealth.  New arrivals in slums, de Soto explains, face “an impenetrable wall” of rules that bar them from “legally established social and economic activities.”  Even when they begin to accumulate assets, those assets aren’t safe.  “Poor people save, but they hold these resources in defective forms:  houses built on land whose ownership rights are not adequately recorded and unincorporated businesses with undefined liability.  Without the formal legal institutions that allow one to accumulate wealth and borrow against it to build businesses, wealth cannot be put to full use, maintains de Soto.  It stays locked up, frozen.  It is 'dead capital.'”

Immigrants to the United States from Europe moved into slums and then worked their way into the middle class.  The slums, as inadequate as they were, provided commmunity and a place for small businesses and the chance to accumulate wealth.  This, in turn, allowed those immigrants to move into the Great American Middle Class.

The author mentions Levittown as an example of inexpensive housing providing a chance for people with jobs to move up to home ownership.  In 1955 my Parents moved to Levittown, PA, and it was exactly as the book states.  A mix of people, working to be neighbors and to improve themselves.  A year later, as an Eighth Grader I was angry that we were leaving for Southern California and a promotion for my Father.  But, that starter house, owned for about ten months, was the beginning of family wealth accumulation that, upon the passing of my Father, allowed me to use my one-third inheritance to pay off my own mortgage.

Where this did not work was for Black Americans who were part of the Great Migration.  The Great Migration was from 1910 to 1970.  People left the South, the Old South, and moved North.  But, they didn't get the chance to grow into home owners and independent business people.  Instead, the Do Gooders wished to enure runnning water and adequate toilet facilities, and adequate housing.  Thus the projects.

However, the Publilc Housing Projects did not allow for the accummulation of wealth.  In fact, in many cases rents were tied to inconme.  Further, the arrangements dicouraged co-habitation.  This worked against the building of family units, with its direct effect on child rearing.♠  It also worked against providing living space for family memembers or for renting out a room, which would allow the building of capital.

The author writes:

“Missing middle” housing—privately built and unsubsidized—should be seen as a substitute for the reform projects that have distorted housing markets, skewed the incentives of lower-income families, denied the poor the opportunity to accumulate assets, and leveled historic and vibrant poor sides of town, leaving sterility and despair behind.

One wonders if this analysis can be extended to the homeless problem.  Granted, homelessness is a cover term for a number of issues.  That said, is our approach to homelessness (not connected to mental health or domestic violence) not helping the homeless become productive members of society?

But, beyond Public Housing there is the issue of Zoning in helping or hurting the poor to achieve home ownership.  Zoning is not so much a Federal issue as it is a Local Government issue.  That level of government is thee and me and our influence on our local lawmakers and those they appoint to Boards and Commissions.  That means we need to be informed and we need to vote.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  There seems to be a certain bias against the baby father in these setups.  He was seen as not necessary by the reformers.